Can we Learn to be Agentic from Israel?
What makes Israel so successful and what we can learn
If you’ve been mildly interested in becoming successful in anything, you may have encountered phrases such as “to be successful, you need to have agency” or “shoot your shot; the worst they can say is no.”
An article by Neel Nanda defines agency as “doing what is needed to achieve your goals.” It is about getting out of the default mode, which the world always appears to be in.
Others have suggested it means waking up and doing things. There’s always that feeling that you can do something next week, or that the stars are not fully aligned and you need to wait a little longer, or that you need to be modest and courteous and give people enough time to “get back to you.” Being agentic means you can bypass all that “waiting” and do what you want to do.
Even though the idea is quite straightforward, it never comes out intuitively to most of us. Many writers default to giving anecdotes of what being agentic means to them. However, I believe we can have a more objective view of what agency is by studying how Israel conducts itself.
How does Israel do it?
The world has a default mode of operation. We have institutions like the UN that enforce international law. We have powerful countries like the United States that try to police the world. Yet, every time Israel is on the news, it's always for something they did and rarely for something they said. Israel wakes up and does stuff.
The world: Please don’t bomb Iran?
Israel: Oops! We already did it.
The world: Are you aware we had scheduled talks with Iran about a possible nuclear deal?
Israel": My bad! We’ve killed key leaders of the IRGC.Iran: We will bomb you and bring down the zionist regime.
Israel: Look! We just bombed their nuclear facilities.
If nations can be agentic, like humans, then we need to learn what agency means from Israel. This is because, despite too much red tape surrounding what countries can and cannot do, Israel does whatever it wants and succeeds in almost everything it does.1
This article, published anonymously in LessWrong, describes seven ways to become agentic. On closer look, five of the seven are straight from the Israeli playbook. Let’s review each one and see how they align.
Figure out what you need, figure out who can help you get it, and ask them for it.
We know that Israel already figured that Iran is a threat to its existence and also figured that the United States can help it fight the war. Israel’s conduct so far has been an attempt at dragging the United States into the war. Is it working?
As with previous wars, the US has to find a credible reason to join the conflict. It’s not a matter of if, but when. Israel knows that and keeps trying to give the United States such credible reasons.
Thrive on rejections
Being agentic means there will be such days when you get rejected for an application or an opportunity. This could be a job opportunity, a gig, or anything you wanted to achieve. The goal is to thrive on such rejections, using them to catapult forward.
If you are Israel, your Iron Dome will occasionally be put to the test. What we learn from Israel is that taking a few hits once in a while isn’t a very bad thing. If you can bomb others, be prepared to be bombed too.
Increase your surface area for serendipity.
This basically means the more you put yourself out there, the more opportunities you get. Writing blogs and recording TikToks are examples of serendipitous vehicles—things people do to increase their surface area for opportunities.
For a country like Israel that wants to fight, opportunity means something else, and serendipitous vehicles may come in different forms. For instance, you may wonder, if Mossad blew pagers to kill targets and bombed Iran from within, how didn’t they know Hamas would attack on October 7? The New York Times reports that Israel had known one year earlier that Hamas would attack.
Anyway, if you want an opportunity to counterattack, you must justify it by putting yourself out there. Similarly, if the United States wants to enter the conflict, it will try to make itself a target.
Seek forgiveness rather than permission.
Success rarely comes easily to us because we’re always waiting to be given permission, or we’re held up in the bureaucratic maze of trying to do things the right way. But being agentic means kesi baadae.
We have a long list of Israel saying fuck the UN. According to Wikipedia, “as of 2013, the State of Israel has been condemned in 45 resolutions by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).” It also notes that “from 1967 to 1989, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted 131 Security Council resolutions directly addressing the Arab–Israeli conflict.”
Consider a wider option space – what is the upper bound scenario?
Often, we are constrained by the opportunities before us, forgetting that we can accomplish a lot more by expanding our field of view.
I believe Russia and Ukraine have fought a very conventional war. However, every time Israel is on the news, it’s because they’ve done something weird or acted in ways outside the option space of conventional warfare. This explains why, for a very small nation, they have too many UN resolutions addressing their conduct.
I understand the Ashkenazim have a very high average IQ, and some aspects of being agentic can be explained away by the fact that jews are very smart. However, a lot of what we are seeing from Israel is an attitude biased towards action. These are people with more action than talk, and as you’d expect, this level of shrewdness coupled with high agency may not be very admirable.
Our anonymous author describes this issue accurately, noting that being agentic is often associated with “being entitled, or ‘too much’ or too bossy.” In most instances, you’ll be asked, “Who do you think you are?” which is exactly the sentiment Israel has been getting for a long period now.
Regardless, I believe we can use Israel as a good example of what agency means and why it’s important for success. If interested, you can pursue any of these strategies to see if they bring any success. And for those constrained by virtue, rather than doubling down on misconduct like Israel often does, it’s important to note that these strategies can be applied to honorable activities.
I am looking into the success rate here, and not whether they win any specific battle.
The state has continually operated under "kesi baadae" mentality since inception in '48. They call it "Chutzpah". A book called 'Start-up Nation' discusses this quite well.
In as much as they are not a model state, there are a few qualities/traits they have exhibited over the last 80yrs that necessary for success, and are admirable for both states and individuals.